Japanese arcade

[jlfreund]

I'm surprised we don't hear more about the Japanese arcade market since it's still going strong after all these years.  I've been curious what the deal is ever since I saw the movie Lost in Translation where some goofy teenager was freaking out to some kind of wacky Japanese arcade game. 

I recently spent a month in Tokyo (my first visit) so I made a point of trying to find an arcade. That wasn't hard to do -- they are thriving everywhere.  So I wanted to post some pictures and impressions of what life would've been like here in the US, if the arcade industry hadn't died 2 decades ago.

Unfortunately, I only have a few pictures...

1) [pic 1: row of arcade cabinets] All standard, modern arcade cabinets are alike in the arcades I saw.  They are all sit-down cabinets with very nice, large CRT monitors.

2) [pic 2: fishing game] Four players stand on each side of a table with a projection of a fish pond.  Each player feeds a row of tokens into the coin slot, while using a spinner to aim a fishing net.  As soon as the token drops, a fish net is thrown out, and depending on your catch, you can win some tokens.  Good players have several rolls of tokens queued up (maybe $10) and push them all into the coin drop when a big school of fish swims past.  It looked pretty fun.

3) [pic 3: Kids games] There were a handful of half height kids cabinets at each arcade.  They all seemed to have card slots where you can swipe your card with your "monster" data, and once loaded, you can have your monster fight your friends' monster.   I didn't get a picture, but there were also a lot of girls photo booths at the arcades that seemed popular with the girls.  It looks like these machines let you compose some kind of background and take polaroid with your friends.

4) [pic 4: Half life 2] I'm not sure if this is in the US (I haven't seen an arcade in the US in over a decade, and I've never seen this game).  But the Half life 2 game was pretty popular there.  You can swipe a card to load and save your game.  I played a little bit at the beginner level and the content was taken from the original PC game, but modified a little for the arcade.  It was fun, but the interface is nowhere near as good as the PC.

5) [pic 5: Card game]. Now this was something new.... my impression is it's some kind of turn-based multiplayer mecha-themed game, using electronic trading cards.  It looks like you buy packs of trading cards (ala "magic the gathering") and take it to the arcade.  Laying out and moving the cards on your machine's play field somehow controls the action in the game.  There were about a dozen of these stations networked together, each outfitted with controls such as buttons, a trackball, and an electronic card grid, and all of them sharing a projection monitor in the front coordinating the game.  Pretty inventive, and it looks like it's doing good business.  Nice to see the merchandising and card trading business tie-ins to the arcade.  The electronic card grid makes the experience unreproducible on the PC or console, and the card trading aspect should make the game addicting once you're invested in the cards and coming up to speed on the game system.

6) [pic 6: horse racing]  Horse racing is huge in Tokyo, and this is another multiplayer game where players race and bet on horses. I didn't pay too much attention to what was going ont.

There were so many other wacky variations of games, and the arcades were everywhere.   Pretty exciting.  Just as popular: casinos packed with contraptions that look like a cross between an arcade game and a slot machine.  The front of these stores were always lined with very thick painted glass to block out the extremely loud noise blasting out of the machines. 

Jason

[cowguy]

Always wanted to try out one of the Half-Life 2 arcade games...

[danny_galaga]

 Just as popular: casinos packed with contraptions that look like a cross between an arcade game and a slot machine.  The front of these stores were always lined with very thick painted glass to block out the extremely loud noise blasting out of the machines. 

they sound like pachinko machines. sounds like you had fun scoping out the most important things (",)

[Crowquill]

It's not so much that arcades died as they evolved. After the fighting game craze died down and the 32-bit home consoles came out, there wasn't much that an arcade could offer that you couldn't do at home. Traditional arcades died out, but new "entertainment complexes" sprung up in bigger cities. Dave & Busters, GameWorks, and Jillian's arrived here in Cincinnati. They're places full of big, deluxe games that also has a bar and restaurant attached. On a friday or saturday night the places are pretty busy. Jillian's closed down here, but their location wasn't that great. I went to GameWorks just last week. Most games are deluxe sit-down cabinets or if they are a joystick game they have a huge projection screen.

Thanks for posting the pics. It's pretty sweet to see Guilty Gear next to Space Invaders.

2. Fishing game is very cool.

3. A few of these have made it to the states. GameWorks has Dinosaur King (the orange one in your pic) and Love & Berry (the pink one with the white front). It probably doesn't hurt that GameWorks is owned by Sega.

4. Looks nifty. What were the controls?

5. I've read about this one before. Gundam Card Builder. Some more pics from someone else are here.  I would so love to see this thing in action.

6. That looks pretty similar to the Derby Owners Club game that GameWorks has. I've also seen these a few other places (1 at a Buffalo Wild Wings and one at a local truck stop). I've never seen one with more than one row of stations to bid at though.

Once again thanks for the pics. Gameworks is fun, but Japanese arcades are still much cooler.

The "casinos" you're refering to are probably Pachinko parlors.

[Grasshopper]

Awesome, I'd love to visit Japan one day.

[Angry_Radish]

Great photo's!
Thats one of the things I didn't get to do when I was over there, though I made it into a couple pachinko parlors, I really should have checked out the arcades..
Cool!
 

[jlfreund]

BTW, the shots I posted were all from one giant arcade in Asakusa, one of the historical touristy districts in Tokyo (highly recommended).  I stayed at the Tokyo Dome hotel, and (warning: two different meanings of the word 'arcade' in this sentence) there were two coin "arcades" in the outdoor store "arcades" surrounding the hotel, as well as a couple more just up and down the street.

Jason

[Xiaou2]

 By looking at the pics, I dont see that place as being very busy.

 One thing you have to remember is that a place like Japan has a very
high density of people all in a small area.   Much of the living areas
are probably super high-rise structures...  and Tons of them all
over the place.

 In USA, even some of the most dense cities do not compare to
the population densities found in Asian places.   Because of this,
they do have huge advantages.   They always will have some
sort of people traffic... even on the slowest of days.   

 I recently visited Taipei, and it was very similar.   Many shops
could open late, and or even only be open for half the day...
and still do well.   All because there was just so many people
in a small crowded area.     

 In Usa, Ive heard of some arcades still doing very well.  And all
of these,  were in super high density / traffic places (such as
NYC)   

 This to me does not say Anything about the Quality of games,
which is pretty dismal and uninspiring IMOP.
(and many others too, because if it were not the case, popularity
would still be high in low density areas)


 

[Level42]

I love those kids cabs !!! Would be nice for my 5 year old son

Well I went to Funspot at Weir's beach last year and that is one HUGE arcade/museum. Most classic videogames under one roof in the world. Weirs Beach is a very touristic place since it's on a beautiful lake with a beautiful Indian name I forgot[Edit, i think it was Winipasaukee or something like that ?)....so i guess the tourists are their traffic. When we were there, season was just over and we were there on a thursday and friday and there were only a handful of people.

jlfreund, thanks for sharing this, great fun. Did you happen to see a Samba De Amigo cab there ? If so, please take some good pictures of it and measure everything so I can build my own

[Disturbed013]

Thank you for some great pics!  I would love to visit Japan too.  (Currently planning for S. Africa & Europe, so it will have to wait a while)

It is very interesting to see how arcades have evolved there as opposed to here in US.  I don't know for sure that they have died out or evolved or have been resurrected, but having been in GameWorks in Tempe, it it definitely not the same as my childhood in the 80's.  It is VERY nice however, to enjoy a frosty adult beverage while gaming though....

I just wanted to point out what to me seemed like a huge difference from every classic arcade that I recall:  I have never seen an arcade with so much lighting!  Is that just an effect from your camera (flash?) or did the place really have blazing fluorescent lights as it appears in the photos?

[Dreamwriter]

I read somewhere that there are around 8000 arcades in Japan...and only 2000 in the US.  Ones in the US are few and far between, they aren't just "evolved", they are dead.  The big ones still manage to survive, but those are rare even among the 2000 - Gameworks, for example, there are only 14 in the US.  Most people don't live anywhere near any arcade at all anymore, unlike Japan.  And they are still dying - there was an awesome place near me, Illusionz, an arcade+minigolf+lasertag+rock climbing+magic shows, far enough away from Gameworks they should have had plenty of business, but they died at the end of 2006.

[Crowquill]

I read somewhere that there are around 8000 arcades in Japan...and only 2000 in the US.  Ones in the US are few and far between, they aren't just "evolved", they are dead.  The big ones still manage to survive, but those are rare even among the 2000 - Gameworks, for example, there are only 14 in the US.  Most people don't live anywhere near any arcade at all anymore, unlike Japan.  And they are still dying - there was an awesome place near me, Illusionz, an arcade+minigolf+lasertag+rock climbing+magic shows, far enough away from Gameworks they should have had plenty of business, but they died at the end of 2006.

I guess I should clarify. By "evolved" I meant "doing whatever they could to survive". I thought the initial post was implying that arcades do not exist at all. There are only a few companies still releasing games (Sega/Sammy, Namco, Konami, Raw Thrills, EA, IT, maybe a few more), Only Stern is remaining for Pinball. I'm not the biggest advocate of GameWorks and D&B. They're big and expensive and have nothing but giant super-deluxe games. But I do like to play games and that's where to find the most games. I find it a bit depressing not just that the game market died out, but also that traditional cabinets died out. It's rediculously hard to find an arcade anymore that has rows of cabinets lining the walls. I can only think of 4 games that they have in all of gameworks that use traditional joysticks (Tekken 5, Madden, Virtua Tennis, and a Frogger that's meant for kids). I need to stop. I'm depressing myself. I need to go play Robotron.